


Surrender

by thegoodfic



Category: The Good Doctor (TV 2017)
Genre: Claire's not a resident anymore so there are no rules right?, F/M, Melendaire, but also quite tense, cute and fluffy, or if there are, there are a lot of suppressed feelings, they're definitely broken, yeah no rules
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:49:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23787367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegoodfic/pseuds/thegoodfic
Summary: Claire Browne looks breathtaking and for very good reason.She's finally finished her residency and she's out for dinner and a few too many drinks with all the people who helped her get there.She sits down at the table next to her mentor, who's over time become a friend, but never anything more because she was his resident and he her attending.But she's a fully fledged surgeon now and he's no longer her boss.
Relationships: Claire Browne & Neil Melendez, Claire Browne/Neil Melendez
Comments: 20
Kudos: 93





	1. An Attending and his Resident

He almost choked on his water when he saw her. 

She walked into the restaurant wearing heels that could kill, a long black jumpsuit with a cut out at the front that dipped juuuust far enough, her hair was pulled back from her face but free to bounce below her shoulders. 

And don’t even get him started on the red lipstick.

He’d seen Claire dressed up before, but _damn_. She was breathtaking and had every reason to be. 

“Sorry sorry! I got caught up on the phone,” she said, flustered as she approached the table. 

The other doctors had been at the restaurant for about 15 minutes already, enough time for Doctor Glassman to recount a story about having to break up a fight between younger Drs Lim and Melendez in their final year of residency, when they’d both been chosen to share the Chief Resident role. 

Neil and Audrey rolled their eyes at each other, Shaun and Morgan laughed while Marcus Andrews and Alex Park were deep in their own conversation about car seat safety, each expecting a new baby in the coming months. 

“No worries, Chief - we wouldn’t start without you!” Audrey smiled. 

Claire slid into the only available seat at the table across from Lim and Neil did his best to ignore the chill that ran up his spine when her knee brushed his as she sat down next to him. They shared a smile before Audrey popped the bottle of champagne that had been waiting on ice. 

“To a spectacular group of surgeons, who survived! Just..” she toasted. 

The table erupted in cheers and grins as everyone’s glasses met in the middle. 

Claire, Morgan, Alex and Shaun had finally finished their residency.

Morgan hadn’t yet decided on her next move, something the very organised and competitive young docter was still coming to terms with. No longer able to operate, she was considering stepping into paediatrics but for now, she’d work under Glassman in the clinic until she figured it out. 

Alex was planning a move back to Phoenix, to be with his wife, son and the daughter they had on the way. He’d secured a job with a hospital near his son’s school and had been itching to get over there. 

Claire and Shaun were going to stay in San Jose. Shaun had been accepted into a neurosurgery fellowship at a nearby hospital and Claire was set to specialise in trauma at St Bonaventure after the three month trip around the world she’d been planning for the better part of a year. 

And while Claire would mostly be working with Dr Lim in her new role, Neil was quietly glad he’d still bump into the best resident he’d ever trained. 

He caught her eye and smiled, dipping his glass towards her. 

“I’m really proud of you, Claire,” he said quietly. 

She blushed and tapped the rim of his glass with hers

“Couldn’t have done it without you, Dr Melendez,” she smiled, before taking a sip.

Drinks flowed and the plates of food seemed endless as the night carried on, an air of calm and contentment surrounding the group. 

Relaxed and outside of work, Claire finally told her colleagues that actually, she’d hated being Chief Resident this year and never wanted the role anyway. But she was glad she got to boss around three of her favourite people, who made the job easier for her. 

A few champagnes deep, Alex admitted that the time he’d taken emergency leave about 7 months earlier wasn’t because his mother was ill - he’d just been missing his wife. 

“Isn’t she about 7 months along?!” Audrey quizzed.

Alex smirked, said nothing and took a sip of his drink. 

Maybe it was a night for confessions. 

As she allowed Neil to pour her another drink from the bottle of wine on the table, she turned and smiled at him, inadvertently pushing her knee against his under the table.

“Thanks,” she said quietly, suddenly noticing how close they’d gotten. 

Neither bothered to move.

“Who were you talking to earlier?” Neil asked her, refilling his own glass. 

“Sorry?”

“You said you got caught up on the phone,” he clarified. 

“Oh!” she remembered. “Yeah, it was just Dash.”

He tried not to react and took a gulp from his glass.

He hadn’t heard her talk about Dash in almost a year, he’d assumed they’d fallen out of touch after their futile attempt at dating. 

Neil readjusted himself in his seat and Claire’s leg felt cold when she noticed he’d pulled away. 

“He was just calling to say congratulations on finishing up,” she said, trying to fill the sudden silence between them. 

“I actually hadn’t heard from him in ages until he emailed the other week to let me know he and his partner are expecting a baby in a few months.”

Neil exhaled. He didn’t realise he’d been holding his breath. 

“Oh?” he smiled, turning his whole body to face her. “That’s lovely news.” 

She felt her entire body erupt in goosebumps when his knee grazed hers again under the table.

That time it felt intentional. 

Audrey pulled Claire into a discussion with Dr Glassman on the other side of the table about whether or not you’d fix a split lip on a 4-year-old with a few stitches in the emergency room, or wait for a plastic surgeon to come in and do it properly. 

“It’s on the kid’s face!” Audrey cried. “You’d want to make sure it was done properly or that poor kid will end up with a huge scar! Right Claire?”

“It’d fade by the time the kid was old enough to care about it,” Doctor Glassman said. 

Claire nodded and probably ended up agreeing with both sides, but she couldn’t add anything to the argument. 

Because suddenly she was distracted by a heavy hand resting on her leg. 

Her eyes flicked around, panicked that someone could see what was going on under the table, despite the cover of a table cloth and numerous bottles of wine blurring everyone’s vision. 

She didn't know whether to face Neil. 

Did he realise what he was doing? 

Of course he did. 

She sat back in her chair and slowly turned to look at him, a small, suspicious smile pulling at her lips. 

He smirked, squeezing her leg and sliding his hand a little further up her thigh, watching her draw a sudden breath at the move. 

While the tension between the pair had been building for months, if not years, neither had ever outwardly acknowledged it. Neil had never wanted to compromise her job and Claire could never allow herself to even entertain the idea of sleeping with her boss.

But he wasn’t really her boss anymore. 

She swallowed a small giggle and turned back to the table, trying to ignore the voices in her head telling her the restaurant was suddenly the last place she wanted to be. 

Neil casually chatted golf with Andrews and Park, then paediatrics with Morgan as everyone continued eating and drinking. Claire tried to contribute to a conversation with Audrey, Shaun and Dr Glassman, but the invisible patterns Neil’s thumb was drawing on her thigh kept causing her to lose her train of thought. She silently cursed him for managing to pretend nothing was happening, while she felt like a duck in a pond - calm on the surface but certainly not underneath. 

When restaurant staff started packing up around them, the team took the less than subtle hint that it was time to head for the door and Claire had never been so glad to pay a bill in her life. 

Claire walked out in front of Neil, letting out a quiet sigh when she felt a light hand on the small of her back as the group made their way to a taxi rank. Marcus, Shaun, Alex and Morgan headed in the opposite direction, bound for a karaoke bar that on any other night Claire would have loved.

But not tonight. 

She watched Neil as he put a rather wobbly Dr Glassman in a cab and waved another over. 

“Are we all heading in the same direction?” Audrey said, looking between Neil and Claire. “We can just split one, I think your place would be first Claire?” 

She hesitated. 

Splitting a cab with Dr Lim would make it difficult to get out of going home alone. 

“Yours is actually closer, I think Audrey,” Neil piped up. “We can drop you, then Claire, then me.” 

She had no idea if he was right and frankly, neither did he. 

But she wasn’t about to argue. 

And if Claire thought the hours sitting at the dinner table were frustrating, she had no idea what was waiting for her in the back of the dark taxi when she climbed in next to Neil and felt his hand on her thigh again. 

Audrey barely said goodbye when the cab pulled up outside of her place, half asleep and full of wine they watched her stumble to the front door and let herself in before Claire gave the driver her address. 

“It’ll be the last stop,” she added. 

That was Neil’s total undoing. 

His hand slid further up Claire’s leg and she unconsciously drew them apart just slightly, as his fingers gripped her inner thigh. She took a sharp breath in as his fingers danced over the material of her pant legs. She turned to face him, slowly leaning closer before their lips crashed together in a desperate and frenzied kiss. She held the back of his neck, fingers in his hair and she pulled him closer. She needed all of him, all over her. 

If the taxi driver knew what was happening on the back seat, he didn’t say anything. Just casually flicked on the light when he pulled up out the front of Claire’s apartment. Neil paid as Claire climbed out of the car, managing to swipe into the building by the time Neil caught up with her. 

Their kisses continued in the lift up to Claire’s floor. Her back pressed against the mirrors, his lips on her neck. Her leg wrapped around his waist, one of his hands under her thigh. Suddenly she wished she’d been wearing a dress. They were lucky it was late and no one called the lift before it reached level four. 

He was already pulling at the zip on her back by the time they made it to her bedroom and he swore he could see a flash of frustration in her eyes when it momentarily got stuck. 

But he quickly pushed the straps of her jumpsuit off her shoulders and her head rolled back as he reconnected his lips with her skin. He didn’t think he could be more turned on until he noticed she hadn’t been wearing a bra. 

Neither of them said a word beyond a few desperate groans of each other’s names when he pinned her beneath him on the bed and their hands and lips wandered freely, finally surrendering to every ounce of desire and frustration they’d forced themselves to ignore while she was his resident and he her attending.

He'd heard his name called out before, but when it slipped from Claire's lips, it was it's own category of spectacular symphony.

Later, when Claire’s head was rested on Neil’s chest and their legs intertwined, he considered asking her if he should go. But then she looked up at him, those tired green eyes almost melting him on the spot, and kissed his lips softly a few times, before she snuggled back into his neck. 

So he stayed quiet and squeezed her lightly before closing his eyes. 


	2. Inevitable

Apparently they’d forgotten to pull the curtains closed last night. 

Neil woke first, squinting as he slowly opened his eyes. He regretted it immediately. 

The sun hadn’t considered his hangover. 

Beside him, facing the other way, he watched Claire sleep, resisting the urge to wake her with a kiss and maybe lull her into more. 

But he was just as exhausted as she and quite frankly, he wasn’t sure if she was going to wake up feeling same way she had the night before. 

It had been passionate and desperate and not anything like he'd imagined. The feel of her lips on his, her legs wrapped around his waist or her skin under his touch was like something out of a dream his subconscious would never have conceived. He'd always had a feeling she'd be good in bed, but she was really something else.

They’d been lying in bed together for an hour or so last night, when Claire’s legs had started to fidget against his and they quickly gave in to a second round of mind-blowing sex. It was all hot kisses and soft caresses and uncontrollable groans. Neither held back in the slightest. 

He couldn’t figure out what it was, but he’d never felt like this before. 

“I can feel you watching me,” a groggy voice came from beside him. 

She rolled onto her back, rubbing her eyes and gave him a half-asleep, sheepish smile. 

“Morning,” she groaned. “Ugh why is it so bright?”

He chuckled as she rolled back over and pulled the blanket over her face. 

“I’m not ready for the sun,” she said. "Everything hurts and I'm dying."

He slid off the bed and pulled on his boxer shorts that had conveniently landed beside the bed, before getting up to close the curtains. 

She popped her head up from under the covers and thanked him with an embarrassed smile. 

“Are you going somewhere?”

He stood awkwardly. 

“Oh uh, I can get going if you wanted - “

“Oh, did you.. need to?”

She sat up slightly, her face a contorted look of confusion, exhaustion and he swore, disappointment.

“Not unless you wanted me to.”

He exhaled, smiling, when she shook her head. 

“I’d prefer if you stayed.”

He climbed back in beside her and she naturally pressed her back against his front, pulling his arm around her waist and welcoming the soft kisses he placed on her neck. 

“You can leave if you wanted to, though,” she said quietly. 

He stilled for a moment, unsure if that meant she’d changed her mind. 

“I don’t want to.”

He felt her relax under his touch and resumed his soft kisses on her neck, shoulder and when she eventually turned in his arms to face him, her lips. 

“You don’t regret -?” she whispered, avoiding his eye. 

“Not for a second,” he replied. “Do you?”

“No.”

He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead and pulled her closer, if it was possible. 

“This was always going to happen, wasn’t it?” she smiled into his neck. 

“I’m impressed we made it to the end of your residency,” he said matter-of-factly. “Though, if I’d known that was what I was missing, I probably would have caved a long time ago.”

She smiled. 

He was right, as always.

They would still face hurdles when they returned to work together three months later, after she’d had the adventure of a lifetime; the reward she gave herself for proving to no one but Claire Browne that she could succeed. Even though he was technically no longer her boss, workplace relationships were always tough and the rumour mill would undoubtedly decide this had happened months earlier than it had. People would see special treatment in every one of her achievements as a resident and favouritism in her permanent appointment to the trauma team. There would be accusations of bias when she was chosen to scrub in with him, even months and years later when she’d more than proved her worth as a surgeon. Dr Lim would turn a blind eye for a while, before ultimately quizzing Claire on the seriousness of their relationship one quiet afternoon in the ER. They’d be cleared by HR with no hesitation and move in together not long after that. 

But on that very first morning, they just stayed together in Claire’s bedroom, shutting out the world and finally, freely, enjoying all of each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short finisher for this little one. 
> 
> Part of me wants to write some of the little glimpses into the future featured at the end there - but this is it for now, for what was supposed to be a quick little one shot. 
> 
> As always, thanks for reading and commenting. Lovely comments are what makes me want to keep writing. 
> 
> x

**Author's Note:**

> There's not a whole lot else to do in self isolation other than read and write, so here's another Melendaire fic to hopefully help you stay in the 'Melendez is fine nothing happened and this show deserved better' bubble :) :)


End file.
